Disney+ Europe Exec on Why Free-to-Air Partners Are 'Incredibly Important for Our Business'
'Audiences: What do they want and from where?' That was the question, and the title, of a panel session at the Media & Telecoms 2025 & Beyond Conference in London on Tuesday, organized by Deloitte and Enders Analysis. Tasked with providing answers were top executives from the Walt Disney Co., YouTube, and U.K. TV giant ITV.
The panelists were Alison Lomax, managing director, YouTube U.K. & Ireland, Kevin Lygo, managing director, media & entertainment at ITV, and Karl Holmes, senior vp, direct to consumer & general manager, Disney+ at the Walt Disney Co. Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
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'Across the markets we operate in Europe, the big free-to-air channels still aggregate the largest audiences, have the largest shows, and have the largest production budgets,' Holmes shared when asked if a U.S. giant like Disney has a role to play in nurturing linear channels in foreign markets. 'That's really important. We're also part of that. We operate linear channels in 28 markets across Europe, and they are an important and sustainable part of our business. How do we work with free-to-air? Because free-to-air [broadcasters] aggregate the largest audiences and have the largest production budgets, it's really important we do work with free-to-air. So we license content to free-to-air. We license content from free-to-airs. We have co-production agreements in place with most of the large free-to-air broadcasters across Europe.'
He added: 'In Spain and in the Nordics, the paid VOD platforms actually sell Disney+. We're delighted that some of our best-performing original content comes from free-to-airs. We want to do more of this.'
And paid streamers also offer Disney+ and its content. Concluded Holmes: 'The free-to-air partners are incredibly important for our business. We're part of the media ecosystem.' He also touted such hit Disney+ content as Shōgun and Rivals.
Tuesday's conference also featured top executives from the likes of U.K. public broadcaster BBC, streaming giant Netflix, and Comcast-owned Sky and Sky Studios.
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